The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 130: Ryan Holiday – What Is Your Greatest Enemy? Your Ego

Episode Date: June 5, 2016

Episode 130: Ryan Holiday – What Is Your Greatest Enemy? Your Ego If you enjoyed the first conversation Ryan Holiday and I had, then you will absolutely love this one.  We went much deeper on a number of really interesting topics including: Destiny (does it choose us?), Ego, Stoicism, Risk, Metallica, Focus, Silence, and Gawker Media… I loved it. Ryan Holiday is a media strategist and prominent writer on strategy and business. After dropping out of college at nineteen to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, he went on to advise many bestselling authors and multiplatinum musicians. He served as director of marketing at American Apparel for many years, where his campaigns have been used as case studies by Twitter, YouTube, and Google and written about in AdAge, the New York Times, and Fast Company.  His most recent book, "Ego Is The Enemy" draws on a vast array of stories and examples, from literature to philosophy to his­tory. We meet fascinating figures such as George Marshall, Jackie Robinson, Katharine Graham, Bill Belichick, and Eleanor Roosevelt, who all reached the highest levels of power and success by con­quering their own egos. Their strategies and tactics can be ours as well. Episode 130: Ryan Holiday – What Is Your Greatest Enemy? Your Ego Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio "Ryan Holiday is one of his generation's finest thinkers, and this book is his best yet." - Steven Pressfield, author of New York Times bestseller "The War of Art" The Learning Leader Show In This Episode, You Will Learn: The importance of always being a student – "One cannot learn that which they think they already know." The remarkable story of Kirk Hammett, lead guitar player for Metallica – His actions upon being hired will blow you away (and inspire you) Ryan's process for receiving feedback and coaching Why it's not wise to try and impress others Being motivated to prove people right The importance of your spouse The power of silence and how it relates to Robert Greene's work in The 48 Laws of Power The phrase confident and secure leaders are willing to say that others are not Don't follow your passion, follow your effort – Nobody quits what they're good at What is destiny?  Is it predetermined? Meeting your heroes in person Why Ryan feels that Gawker is one of the worst media companies of all time and the piece he wrote about Peter Thiel Great giveaways for his book "Be an anteambulo – Clear the path for others to be successful." "One cannot learn that which they think they already know." Continue Learning: Go To Ryan's Website: RyanHoliday.net Read: Ego Is The Enemy Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanHoliday Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 You may also like these episodes: Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why Episode 127: Adam Grant – How Originals Impact The World Episode 117: Tim Urban – Using Procrastination To Perform A TED Talk Episode 114: Cal Newport – Deep Work Is Your Super Power Did you enjoy the podcast? This was a jam packed episode full of great content.  Ryan Holiday is a leader who leads an very interesting life. Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show! Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell From The Prologue of "Ego Is The Enemy" "While the history books are filled with tales of obsessive visionary geniuses who remade the world in their image with sheer, almost irrational force, I've found that history is also made by individuals who fought their egos at every turn, who eschewed the spotlight, and who put their higher goals above their desire for recognition."

Doing what we do is very difficult, you know, like you work on something and it fails or, you know, you've got to bet everything on a single, you know, a single try. That's very hard to do alone. And oftentimes people won't do it when they're alone because they're scared or they don't want to take the risk where they don't have someone. Like I remember when I was thinking about dropping out of college, like I think if I was by myself, I probably wouldn't have done it in a weird way dropping out by myself. would have been lonely and scary in a way that like having someone who's like, like, look, you're amazing, you're going to be able to do this. This is fine. Sort of gave me some of the courage that I needed to make this decision that ultimately, you know, changed my life in a very positive way. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work

on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey guys, it's Ryan Update in regards to the Facebook group we've set up. I'm so happy to see the response that we've gotten from so many great fellow learning leaders. The conversation and the dialogue has been fantastic, so I'd love to invite all of you to further the conversation and join us. simply go to learning leader.com slash group learning leader.com slash group and we will add you to the community and you can join like-minded individuals to discuss leadership topics argue a little bit

maybe we can disagree I think that's how we all learn but it's been fantastic so far I've loved really engaging with you guys the great listeners of the learning leader show so go to learning Learning Leader.com slash group. We'll add you, and I look forward to talking with you soon. Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk, and thank you so much for being here. I'm thrilled with tonight's featured leader. One of my favorite writers makes his return.

It's Ryan Holiday. At the age of 19, he dropped out of college to apprentice under Robert Green, the author of the 48 Laws of Power. Ryan is also a best-selling author in his own right on his previous appearance on the show, we talked about, The Obstacle is the Way, which is a book that has spread far and wide, translated into 17 languages in all different industries, including the NFL, world-class athletes, TV personalities, political leaders all over the place. However, on this conversation, we discussed exclusively his newest piece of work, ego is the enemy and everything that went

into it. I urge you guys, you'll want to read this book. I'm very fortunate to get a copy from Ryan early, and I absolutely loved it. A few of the topics we discussed. Motivation and the study of it and why trying to impress others can actually do more harm than good. The theme of never stop being a student, how that plays really well into the Learning Leader Show, but also this great story Ryan told about the lead singer of Metallica and specifically what he did once he got that job. I loved it. And then Destiny, it's a little bit deeper topic. Destiny, does it choose us? I'm not really sure. Ryan gave a very thoughtful response to this question. And I think you guys will find it both educational as well as

entertaining. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, it's Ryan Holiday. Ryan Holiday, welcome back to the show. It's so good to have you. I, you know, recently devoured your newest book, Ego is the enemy. And I think what I would like to do for this conversation is to really dive deeper onto certain parts of the book that I was dog-earing and highlighting and taking notes from. So if you're, if you're good with it, I'd love to get it rolling from that perspective. Does that sound good? It sounds great. It seems like I just saw you as well. So I know. Well, I would talk about some of that too, because we had a good time in Ohio as well as we can get there. So the interesting part, specifically maybe I, when I read this type of writing, it just perks, I get perked up a little

bit and that and that's in regards to never stop being a student. So this is part of your newest book. And, you know, my show is called a Learning Leader Show. It's all about constantly learning, getting better, having an open mind. And I like the quote too from Epictetus that is, one cannot learn that which they think they already know. And I've also heard you mention that this is advice that you give to a lot of younger people. Could you elaborate more on the you know, never stop being a student aspect of what you've studied and what you've written about. I think Epictetus's quote is very obvious, but it's missed by a lot of people, right? So sort of like, if you think you already know everything that there is to know, you're right,

because you're not going to learn anything else, right? So it's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but in a negative way. So the second you think, like, hey, I've done it, I've mastered this thing, you're right you're that's that's that's that's that's the death of your education or that's that's your that's the end point but in in reality there's there's always something left to learn there's a a great quote from from john wheeler the physicist where he's saying you know as our as our island of knowledge grows so too does the does the shoreline of our ignorance and i think that's that's what really great people have figured out and sort of intuitively

understood. You know, it's that this craft that they've dedicated themselves to, it never ends. There is no end point. And so if the other, not only does that obviously have the benefit of making you learn a lot, but it has the, it inherently kills the ego because you have attached yourself to something you've you're never going to master. And so what I guess what I'm saying is that this beginner's mindset is inherently an ego killer. And that is why often, you know, you take the best MMA fighters, the best boxers, the best

musicians, you don't find that they're they talk down to you, that they're incredibly cocky. But in fact, they're very humble people because the career that they have pursued is inherently, inherently humbling. There's a Rush song, the band Rush, who I love a lot, who is probably one of the, technically one of the best sort of groups of musicians ever, and there's a line and they have the song

Mystic Rhythms, and they're saying, you know, the more we think we know, the greater the unknown. And I think that's that same idea. And if you can embrace that mindset, particularly early on in your career, you go a long way to combating that sort of toxic ego that ultimately causes a lot of people, a lot of

trouble. the one of the other stories you point out in regards to being a student correct me if i pronounce any names wrong but kirk hammett i i don't know i'm not i'm i'm there's a there's a great line i heard where it was like never um never correct someone when you hear them mispronounce a word because it it means that they or pronounce a word wrong because it means they probably learned it while reading and i'm the same i'm the same way so even even like in my own audiobooks. You sit down and you read an audio book and I'll have to say a word and I'll realize I've used a word in my own book that I've never said out loud before. And so I don't know the

names either. So I'm not going to correct you even if I could. That's a really cool little point that I'm going to take away from this because I've never heard that before, but it's true. Because everyone just, I don't know, like nobody wants to correct or nobody wants to pronounce somebody's name wrong. But the story I was getting to was Kirk, I'm going to pronounce it, Hammett, the guitar player for Metallica. Yes. He earned the job of being the, what, lead guitar player. Yeah.

And this was probably, was this before they got really big. But still, there was a lot of promise they showed that they were going to be a big-time band. And even though he earned the job of being the league guitar player of a band that was on the brink of being one of the biggest in the world, he decided to pay and hire a guitar teacher to teach him. And his teacher, Joe Satriani. Joe Satriani. Joe Satriani. I know these two because I've heard their names. Okay, okay.

But the fact that, and I love the part, too, where he says, Joe said, what separated Kirk from all the rest was his willingness to endure the type of instruction that others wouldn't. And I love that takeaway because someone who's even at the peak or some would say as one of the greatest guitar players in the world said, you know what, I need a coach because I want to get better and I'm going to continue being a student. Yeah, I mean, this is literally the moment where he becomes professional, right? He's like chosen to join a real band. And, you know, it's shortly after that that he says, you know, but even so, I'm going to start taking guitar lessons. Like that seems so backwards, right?

It's like you don't, you take the guitar lessons when you're starting so then you can be in a band. But he's now he's in the band. Now he's, now he's hiring a guitar teacher. And it just happens. He didn't hire any guitar teacher. He hired Joe Satriani, who would, who was then sort of a known as as a very good teacher, but would go on to be like if you look at like you know i don't know guitar world or one of the guitar magazines like when they do their rankings of the top hundred guitars of all time jo satriani is going to be

in the top 10 in almost anyone's list right he goes on to be this amazing guitar uh player so hamlet isn't only looking for a teacher he didn't just like pick some random guy off like a classified dad he found a teacher who is going to deeply challenge him and i think what's even more impressive, he picked a teacher who was not necessarily in his genre either. He didn't pick, like, hey, I'm going to find someone who's good at the kind of music I'm going to play. He picked this sort of eclectic, weird, experimental teacher. And that's what, that's what I think one of the reasons that his guitar sound is so interesting today is because of those influences and because of that study. And, you know, he took lessons, not for like six months, but for two years, even, even

as the band blew up, even as they were recording albums, he's still going and doing these lessons. And so, you know, it's like, hey, if you were to sign a book deal tomorrow, you could be forgiven for thinking, hey, I'm a writer now. Someone just paid me to write. But to say like, hey, there's still a lot left for me to learn. I can still get a lot better at what I do. And look, I'm not saying that everyone needs to go out and hire a teacher either, but it's that because not everything requires a coach or a teacher, but it's still the idea like, hey, I'm not remotely close to having mastered this thing. There is still far more left for me to learn.

And that's what I'm going to focus on. And that's what's going to dominate my approach. So let's take that back to you. You have written multiple bestsellers. Ego as the enemy is going to be a bestseller. I don't have any doubt about that. Thank you. Coming out here June 14th, the obstacle is the way.

Trust me, I'm lying. We go on and on. And they're incredible pieces of work, as well as all of the free content that you regularly put out. I'm like Brian Coppiment. If Ryan Holiday writes it, I read it. And so I really appreciate that. How do you implement coaching, feedback, who are the specific people, maybe if you're willing to share that help you as a professional writer and the other, you know, as an advisor as well? Sure. I mean, one of the things of working with a traditional publisher is that you work with an editor and that editor gets to decide when you're done or

not you, the editor gets to decide. And so not only am I sort of putting myself through that gauntlet as a writer, even though, you know, look, in this book, so I think I may have told you the story and I may have told it other places, but so originally I wanted to write a book about humility. And so the premise of the book was that the working title was keep your identity small. And it was about sort of this idea of being like sort of tamping down your ego, also it was focused much more on humility. And I wrote a proposal about this and my editor was like, look, I love what you do and we're very happy to publish all your books, but I don't think this is

good enough. And I ended up having to do several drafts of this proposal. And finally, we came to some sort of compromise and they bought it, but I knew that it wasn't there yet. And even when I sat down to write, it wasn't quite there. And it was only in conversations with people like my editor, Nikki Popidopoulos, who works at Penguin. I work with another editor named Neil's Parker, who's also my business partner. I talk with my wife about these things a lot. I also, I had a really good conversation with Stephen Presfield, who's one of my favorite writers. And sort of I look up to him as as sort of a writer's writer. And it was in these conversations that I realized I didn't really have the right idea yet. And that that idea pivoted. I realized it's like, okay, humility isn't going to

work as a book. What's the opposite of humility? Ego is the opposite of humility. So ego is the opposite of humility. So ego is what makes humility impossible. Let me zero in on that. So even just down to like what I decided to write about. This isn't a decision that I make intuitively or, you know, it would have been far easier for me to say, you people don't know what you're talking about. I, you know, I'm a successful writer. I know what's best. If you don't want to publish this, then I'm going to self-publish it. But I didn't do that. You know, I, I guess I wanted to open myself up to that feedback. I wanted to go through this process and that if I had to, hadn't done that, the book that you ultimately read and hopefully readers will read is a result of

having to thread that needle to sort of navigate that rigorous feedback, even though it made me do things that maybe I didn't necessarily want to do or even in the immediate sort of heat of the moment think that I needed to do. So it's like, look, when you hand in a draft of a book to your editor. You're like, this is it. This is the best that I can do. And one of the most frustrating, painful things is when they send you back that book and they're like, yeah, you're wrong. You know, it's just not. And you're like, okay, but if I could do better, I would have done better. And they're like, well, what about this, this, this, this and this. And that's sort of what I imagine is similar to those lessons, right? It's like, hey, this is how I play. And the teacher's like,

yeah, but you're doing the following things wrong. Have you tried this? Have you learned this? And it's in going through that that ultimately shapes the creative work, I think, in a way that you wouldn't have just instinctually done. How does it feel personally when somebody that you look up to as a writer's writer? Stephen Pressfield says Ryan Holiday is one of his generation's finest thinkers in this book is his best yet. I try not to think about that because I don't think that there's much. positive. Like, and there's a quote in the book from Maria, Maria Branovich, or Marino Branovich, where she's saying, you know, the second you start to think about your own greatness, that's the death of your creativity. And then there's another book from another female sculptor, and I'm spacing

on her name. But basically, she's saying, it's not good to look backwards except to look at your mistakes. And I think it's the same way. So, like, for me, obviously, I love that quote. And I understand as a marketer that it's of value and I want to put it on the cover. but if I were to go around sort of giving myself credit for that, not only would it be very hypocritical having just written a book about the destructive effects of ego, but I would also be experiencing the consequences of that ego, which is instead of, say, being proud that I wrote a book that was the best that I could conceivably do, now I'm taking pride that somebody else said something flattering and laudatory about me.

and so I would be taking pride in the wrong thing. And so I try to, obviously, I recognize comments like that and I appreciate them. And you try to feel them for a second and be present and appreciate it. But if you let that change how you identify with yourself and how you identify with the craft, it can be very much a recipe for getting a big head and doing the wrong things. Yeah, I related a little bit to there are probably a few people in everyone's lives, maybe more than a few, but at least a few people who you just really want to impress. And maybe I'm wrong here. But for me, I'll take it back, Ryan. Like, my high school coach, football coach was really hard on me, like incredibly hard. And he also was probably one of the number one people in my life for helping me more than anybody. But he was so hard on me that for the brief moments when he showed that he was proud of me or that he told me that I had. I did a good job. Like, I can't lie.

Like, it was one of the best feelings I could ever have when he would tell me that, you know, I had accomplished something incredible, you know? And so I didn't know if Stephen Pressfield was that for you or somebody else, that for a brief moment, you can be like, man, that feels good, but now it's time to keep soldiering on. Oh, he certainly is that person for me. And look, I didn't, I didn't, for whatever reason, I didn't really get that from my parents. They were great parents, but we were sort of just on very different wavelengths. So I never really got that.

Like there wasn't really anything I could do or anything that I ever did do that earned me that feeling for my parents. So I've been, you know, I think that's one of the things that's driven me to be successful in my work. But the irony and the reason why, you know, trying to impress other people is not a great motivation or is sort of a bad fuel is that, one, it's not your control, right? Stephen Presfield could have been too busy to read the book and then I would have felt, you know, nothing. And one of the other people that's that for me is Dr. Drew, who introduced me to Stoicism and was sort of a hero of mine growing up. I remember when I wrote my last book, I sent it to him and he ended up sending me this totally unexpected, super complimentary note about how much he enjoyed it and what he got out of it and some very, very, very nice things. And like, it, for me,

it was funny it was like that was the approval and the the person I was trying to impress for really long time and and I couldn't even look at it like it made me so uncomfortable that I I read it but I I sort of read it with like one of my eyes closed like I couldn't really look at it and so it's interesting you know you people can be motivated by this desire to impress people or they're like hey if I just if the critics finally say that I did a good job or you know I finally win this award and then when you actually get it, you realize it's a little bit different than maybe you thought it was going to be. And it doesn't actually fill that whole maybe the way that it should. What about being motivated by people who truly believe in you?

You read a lot about someone saying, oh, so-and-so has a chip on their shoulder, so-and-so wants to prove them wrong. And I've tried to take the approach that I've been very fortunate to have a certain amount of really great people believe in what I do. And my, and one of my, again, this might be wrong, but one of my desires is to prove those people right, to prove the fact that their opinions of me doing great work, that they are right, even when maybe others didn't, but the few, those select few, whoever they may be, usually it's, for me, it's been family members and some close friends, but to say, you know what, that person is right. So, you know what I mean? Yeah, or maybe to flip that around, I think, you know, there's, there can be people in your life that

maybe see you not as you are, but as the best possible version of yourself that you could be. Like my wife has known me since before I really did anything. And so she's sort of always just seeing me as like who I am inside, right? And so it's, for me, it's not so much about proving her right, but about not letting her down. And I think, you know, I talk about Adam Smith had this wonderful idea of the indifferent spectator. and he was saying, you know, you're sort of want to look at when you're analyzing your own behavior, you're about to make a choice. It's like, what if there was just someone there watching you and you just didn't want to let them down? And so I sort of think about it that way. Or, you know,

Warren Buffett talks about an internal scorecard. You know, it's not about, hey, can I impress these random people or can I, you know, make society love me? I think it's much more about, like, look, what are the metrics or who are the people's opinions that matter to you, personally and focus on those and knowing that that's going to have ultimately a larger impact and that's going to ripple through maybe the rest of society rather than being so focused on on some somewhat arbitrary materialistic benchmarks. Was not going to go here. But speaking of your wife, I've seen a quote from you that said,

the perfect spouse is the best life hack no one told you about it. I could not agree more. I think you and I have that in common. Yeah. Being very lucky. And I took me back to breakfast in Ohio when we were having breakfast together, me, you and your wife, Sam, and Philip McCurnin. And Sam, I think, in a way, because, you know, you probably get this a lot where people see you in public. And they read a lot of your work.

They've seen your videos. They've seen you speak. And in a way, you're, I don't want to use the word celebrity, but you know what I mean. Well, I'm definitely not. But they put you up on like a big pedestal. And I'm sure you see that. And she said, you know what about Ryan? When he gets hungry, he's just not fun to be around.

You know, like it just humanized you for that brief second where it's like, yeah, we're all like that. You know what I mean? And I just thought that was interesting that one of her remarks and she was so pleasant and great and fun to be around and great to talk to. But when she's like, you know what? He goes from being completely content and not hungry to being hungry in like two seconds. And he's just not fun to be around at that time. Yeah, well, she just doesn't put up with any of my crap. You know what I mean?

Yeah. No, I thought it was great. And I think that quote is so accurate. And when I go to speak on college campuses now, Ryan, I bring it up all the time. And a version of what that quote is when they ask be certain pieces of advice or what they should do. In addition to, like, you know, constantly striving to lead and to learn, I say think long and hard about that. That's a big deal in people's lives as to who is going to be your partner. Yeah, I think, you know.

I mean, I see, you see this in movies and TV. shows it's almost become this sort of like millennial trope where it's like oh we got to break up so I can find myself or you know I can't be with the same person for so long because like it's stifling or it's going to ruin my career you know what we've we're sort of taken it for granted that for some reason that being with someone or being in a relationship is actually negative for an entrepreneurial or a creative life and I actually think it's the opposite you know like would I have been able to write the books that I've been able to write in such a short period of time if I had like, you know, a part-time job of having to go out to bars at night,

you know, or if I'd had sort of a revolving door of people in my life? I'm not sure that I would of. And I think also to sort of go to your point, the idea of having someone whose opinion of you matters a great deal that you're trying not to let down that you want to either provide for or build something with. I think these are, you know, deep biological, cultural priorities that, that, you know, people sort of ignore at their own peril. And I just know, like, at doing, sort of doing what we do is very difficult, you know, like you work on something and it fails or, you know, you've got to bet everything on a single, you know, a single try. That's very hard to do alone. And oftentimes people won't do it when they're alone because they're scared or they don't want to take the

risk where they don't have someone like i remember when i was thinking about dropping out of college like i think if i was by myself i probably wouldn't have done it in a weird way dropping out by myself would have been lonely and scary in a way that like having someone who's like like look you're amazing you're going to be able to do this this is fine sort of gave me some of the courage that i needed to make this decision that ultimately, you know, changed my life in a very positive way. And so I just, I'm not saying everyone should be in a relationship and that you should stick with, like, you know, some random person you met in school or, you know, at a bar. But I'm saying if you find the right person, don't think about it as taking away from what you do. I would actually see all the ways that it

enables and encourages what you do. Could not agree more. It makes so much sense. You know, we talked before about Robert Green and some of your work with him and how that impacted you. And there's a part in ego as the enemy that reminded me of some of Robert's work. There's more than a few parts, actually. But one of them specifically is the chapter about talking. And basically, I'll paraphrase some of it and read parts of it, but I want to get your feedback and dive a little deeper on parts of it. You say most people are decent hype and sales. So what is scarce and rare, silence, the ability to deliberately keep yourself out of the conversation of subsist without validation.

And that reminded me of law number four from Robert Green's book. Always say less than necessary? Yeah. And basically, powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish, which this may sound weird since I have a podcast. We talk a lot. But you know what I mean? I found it interesting that the corollary there between some of Robert's work and your works as you guys have worked together.

And I found that when I see really impressive leaders, they abide by this usually without even maybe not even realizing it. Yeah. Look, marketing is obviously important in building a platform and a connection with your audience. All these things are great. And the tools that technology has enabled in that regard, I think are really. awesome and I'm not sure I would be here without them. However, it can be very seductive and tempting to get, to confuse, chattering on the internet with doing the real work. And I think you see that. I mean, I talk about this in the book a little bit, but one of my favorite Twitter accounts is

this thing called, I'm working on my novel. And it's basically just like retweets of people who claim to be working on their novel. And they're obviously not working on their novel or they wouldn't have been tweeting about it, right? You know, and so I think, you know, the relationship between chatter and work is that the former kills the latter, right? Because the more time you spend talking and hyping and whatever, is time taken away from that difficult thing that you need to do. And I think Robert's been a, you know, it's, I would say, I could probably pick, I could probably count on the, on, on one hand, the amount of times that I've called Robert Green and he's picked up the phone

when I called because he's busy. He's writing and he like an actual responsible adult with discipline. He doesn't answer the phone when he's working. Whereas like me, you know, you could call me in the middle of the night and I'm like, oh, where's my phone? I'm going to answer it, right? And so he's always been a model for me in that regard as something I sort of aspire to someone who has enough discipline to sort of say like, look, I don't have time for

these other things. What I do is write books and I'm the only one that can do that thing. And so that's where I'm going to try to focus the vast majority of my time and energy. What advice would you give in regards to this specific law number four from Robert's book as well as from your chapter, Talk, Talk, Talk, where I referenced page 26. Because I think some of the people listening in some way, shape, or form, they feel like if they don't speak up or talk a lot, if they work in a corporate environment that they may be left behind. I personally have found the opposite to be true as long as you're doing great work. I find the people that are that are that that speak the least. I don't know, I'm just trying to say this to be self-serving, but I mean like if I'm in a

group setting personally and I've been told this by other people that I've worked with, like I'm not as comfortable speaking up unless I'm called upon. But once I am and once I do have the floor, then it's like I referenced it like a like a poker player, meaning You might not play a lot of hands, but when I do decide to play, I'm going to be super aggressive. So you'd be referenced as a tight, aggressive player. I don't play a lot of hands, but when I do, I go really hard. And I think that's kind of my philosophy towards speaking up in a group. I don't want to, I'm not going to be speaking up a lot of times, but the few times that I do,

there's going to be a lot of substance there. Well, I mean, that ties into another law from the laws of power where he's saying, concentrate your forces and basically saying instead of chattering and talking all the time. That's how it would apply here. Make sure that when you open your mouth, you really have something to say. I remember when I was working in Hollywood, I worked for this movie producer and I was in some meeting and they were talking about, like, just two people who were not me were talking about this thing that I kind of knew a little bit about. And I remember I interrupted to basically let them know that I also knew about that thing. You know, I added to the conversation, but

basically I added nothing other than, you know, me too. And I remember afterwards, my mentor, he took me aside. And he was like, so why did you say that? And I was like, what do you mean? And it was like, did that need to be said or did you just, just want to hear yourself talk, basically, is what he was saying. Did that actually need to be said? And the answer was no. And I was like, oh, yeah, you're totally right. That was sort of ego and insecurity that was motivating me to talk. And I remember I was lucky enough, I met Rick Rubin, the music producer last year. it was at a lunch with another person. We were talking and talking.

And, you know, of course, I did a lot of talking because I was very insecure. And, and I regretted it after. But I remember, I remember asking him a couple questions and this other person asked Rick a few questions. And Rick said, like, I don't know, like several times. And if you actually listen to his interview with Tim Ferriss, it's the same thing. Several times he said, Tim will ask him a question and he says, I don't know. And I thought that was so unusual, right? He probably does know a little, and he probably knows more than most people.

But he somehow managed his ego and he's comfortable enough with himself that he doesn't feel like saying, I don't know, or passing on a question, it's somehow some missed opportunity that he's never going to recover from. And I found that to be very admirable and something that I've tried to work on in my own life. you've taken risk in your life, you know, and I think you've probably had people question why you did. You dropped out of college and to do some big things. But the reason why I bring this up is because I just spoke with Adam Grant. Adam's great. Yeah, really great. And author of Give and Take as well as most recently originals.

And one of the interesting keys I found from originals is the fact that some of the most successful leaders, entrepreneurs in the world, actually were pretty risk averse. And how do you balance, I'm thinking like drawing from your perspective, drawing from some of Adam's work, and then also thinking about maybe somebody who's listening who might also be risk-averse but has ideas and thoughts that they want to, and things they want to get done. What advice do you give to those people who are a little bit risk-averse, maybe for whatever reason it might be because they have family, you know, people to take care of? They need to make certain amounts of money, but they do have ideas and they want to do it,

noting that there are some of the greatest originals ever were also risk-averse. I think Malcolm Gladwell has written about this too. There's studies that show that entrepreneurs, they take big risks, and then as soon as they take that singular risk, they then try to hedge that risk as much as possible. And I think I try to do that as well. The idea is, you know, I make pretty good money writing, but I also have a business, and I've also tried to invest conservatively, and I've tried to keep my expenses managed, and I've tried to, you know, my wife works, and I've tried to manage my life. You know, Nassim Taleb talks about being anti-fragile that if something bad happens, you're not only not ruined by it, but you have the ability to adapt and overcome it to a degree where you're actually better off than you were before. I think a lot of people put all their eggs in one basket financially and creatively, and I think that's somewhat problematic.

And I think the other thing is people don't necessarily – people – one of the things about ego and one of the reasons I wanted to write this book is that ego makes you take risks that you don't even know that you're taking. You're not even aware of, right? Like writing a book is like when I decided to, you know, I basically left American apparel and I said I was going to write my first book. I was not convinced that the book was going to succeed. I was not convinced that, you know, everything would be fine. It would have been nicer if I felt no sort of anxiety or worry or danger. And I could proceed, you know, it's like in the cartoons where the person runs off a cliff, but they're going so fast that they don't even realize it.

And it's only when they look down that they start to fall. Obviously, that idea is nice. But it's not really how it works. And so I've tried to be very aware of the wrist. that I'm taking, very self-aware, almost doubting myself saying, hey, you know, what's the worst case scenario here? What could it go wrong? Can I, you know, how likely is it to go wrong?

Am I going to be okay if it goes wrong? Sort of thinking through those contingencies. So I'm not going around running off cliffs that I'm not even aware we're there and trying to trying not to take things for granted, I think, is the other part. And so oftentimes I think when people, you know, when people face, you know, sort of catastrophic financial troubles or, you know, oftentimes it's a result of them having made very leveraged risky decisions that they didn't totally think through at the time. And so I don't have as much sympathy for those people as I would for someone who'd really covered their bases and then

happened to be caught off guard by something. Makes complete sense. One of the common, I think, themes you'll hear from basic motivators on, whether it's Instagram or wherever is follow your passion and everything will take care of itself. Follow your passion. Just go for it. You know, that type of thing. And I had a great conversation with Cal Newport about this. And I know you know Cal's worked well.

I think his work is great. And obviously, I've read your most recent work about this. And what Eleanor Roosevelt, the fact of how she did not follow her passion, but she was, you know, driven by reason. And Mark Cuban was just talking to change. Javis, who another guy you've talked to. And I pulled an interesting quote from that video that I saw where Mark says, you know, don't follow your passion, follow your effort, nobody ever quit what they're good at. So it almost all ties together, what Mark Cuban said, what Cal

Newport said, what now you have been saying and are saying here in ego as the enemy, talk to me about the thoughts that go through your mind when you see the Instagram posts or whatever saying, follow your passion and the rest will take care of itself. To go back to what we were just talking about it, this is what I mean is that very passionate people take, they just take these enormous, ridiculous, you know, impossible risk, but their passion makes it hard for them to see that. So, you know, Christopher McCandless, the guy in Into the Wild, he's very passionate about going off into the wild. It's like he never even considered, hey, what would it happen if I eat something poisonous and I die? Right. It's like, and I'm not making light of someone's tragic end, but that's what happened.

And there's been some interesting studies of like people who climbed Everest that I think they call it like poll idiocy. And they basically mean like when people get close to accomplishing something, they get so wrapped up in their passion and enthusiasm for the goal that they stop thinking rationally. They stop looking at dangers and they'll often make sort of a sprint to the summit that, you know, they, they, they. they cannot reasonably make in time, and it's often quite fatal. And so it's not only you won't quit what you're good at, but you tend to be pretty rational about what you're good at and understanding of where your strengths and weaknesses are. I think what happens often, and, you know, Cal has that story and so good they can't ignore you about, like, this woman who is like an accountant or she's doing pretty well, and she's like

quits everything to become like a yoga teacher and over. open a yoga studio. And it's like she had no, she never bothered to stop, like, is this a good business idea? Do I know anything about this? Do I have what it takes? Do I have enough financial runway to make it work? And then she wants us to be sympathetic or inspired by the fact that she pursued her passion. But I say, you know, if you're not, if you don't have the juice to get it past the finish line, then really you kind of just took a dangerous risk. And so I, I, I think passion, I contrast passion and purpose. Purpose is rational but principled.

Passion is all energy and enthusiasm and very little objective, rational thought. Do, is that a topic that comes up when you're advising or helping people? Or is this, or is this something you've just written about? No, no, it happens all the time. I mean, like, I feel like 80% of what I do when I work on books or, people's shows or their products, it's like, this thing is not as good as you think it is. And people don't, like, people don't care about this as much as you care about it. As much as you think they care about it. I'm reading this book by William Manchester right now and he was like saying sort of the,

the nature of egotism is to think that whatever is on your mind is incredibly important, right? Or whatever you're thinking about now happens to be incredibly important. And, And sometimes it's right, but often it's not. And so I think, you know, I wanted to write a book about ego, but I was also, I also had to do a lot of work and have a lot of conversations and go through a lot of hoops to really confirm that, hey, there's a market here and there's an audience here. And I have the chops to pull this book off. And I have the, you know, the time in my life to pull it off and all these things. I didn't just, you know, walk by. recruiting station and say, hey, let's join the Marines. You know, that's not a, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, you get in way over your head. Yeah. Thinking, uh, more along the, the advice line for, especially for younger people, um, and these

questions come up via email to me. I'm sure they come up to you all the time, too. And I, I love the advice that you gave in the book. I cannot pronounce the word. I'm going to ask you to pronounce it for me, but, but, but this is specifically around advice, and I'll share what I took from it and you could add specifically what you meant. But basically when there are certain people, and Bill Belichick did this incredibly well when he was early in his career. But I think the goal for you early in your career, and might even last further than just the

beginning of it, but on into it, is to clear the path for others to be successful and to make others look good, to do other, to do things sometimes behind the scenes to help other people. What is that term be an Antimbulo? It's a Latin word. It means, like it literally means the one who clears the path. And it was a term in ancient Rome. It was like if you were a rich, successful person, you would have like, you know, in the crowded streets of Rome, you would have someone, an assistant basically walk in front

of you and just sort of clear the path. So you had an uninhibited sort of a road ahead of you. And that's sort of how I, you know, when I was working for Robert or I was working for other people. My job was to be that, right? It's to find opportunities or to, you know, even my, the researcher that I work with now who helps me with my stuff. It's like, your job is to do the stuff that is not a good use of my time. You know, so like Robert Green would say, hey, here's this book. I don't think there's anything in it, but there might be. So I would like you to read this book, mark what you, you know, mark anything that you think is worth my attention,

and then tell me if I should look at it or not. So he's not, he's not saying, like, you know, I think people when they hear I was Robert's Research Assistant, they think it's like I was the one doing the coming up with the research. He said, no, Robert's the researcher. He does 98% of all the important work. My job was to do the things that he couldn't even be bothered to do on the 1% chance that there was some value there. You know, my job was to clean out the dusty cob, you know, cobweb-covered, you know, book that he wasn't sure if there was anything because he had enough other things on his plate.

So I sort of think about it like that. The job of someone early on is to do the things that the other person can't do. Bill Belichick gets his first job as basically an unpaid internship in the NFL, watching film, just hundreds of hours of film, because back then coaches didn't really see the purpose of doing that, and they sort of thought it was someone else's job. And it just happened that not only did he do a really good job of it, but he learned so much about the game that he was ultimately a better coach than many of the people that he worked for. So the benefit of being the Antimbulo is not just that you get to work with a successful person, but you're putting in grunt work and sort of laying a

baseline of knowledge, it's very hard to replicate. And it reminds me, too, again, not to harp back on it too much, but some of Roberts' work of putting, making others look good. In his case, I think he references the master, but making others look good by the work that you're doing. That's exactly right. That's how you, that, like, I remember a couple years ago there was like an internship that Cheryl Sandberg had posted and she was looking for an intern to work for like the

Lean In Foundation. And it was an unpaid internship. And I remember like Gawker or some website got really mad about it. They were like, you know, she's a billionaire. How could she possibly be expecting these people to work for her for free? And I have the exact opposite reaction. I go, what's an hour of Cheryl Sandberg's time worth? Like if you, if you're like Cheryl Sandberg, what would you charge me to pick your brain for an hour?

It would be like, I don't know, $100,000 probably some absurd amount, right? If lunch with Warren Buffett is worth like a million dollars, you know, an hour of Cheryl Sandberg's time has got to be, you know, even 10% of that, it's worth a lot, right? So if you take what that time is worth and then you say, hey, I'm going to be in this person's orbit and interact with them on a regular basis and be able to, in exchange for doing this work, be able to occasionally ask them a question or get a reference or get some advice or maybe even. make some connections, what is that worth? It's worth, it's price, it's literally priceless. And so I see it, it's not what are they paying you? It's what are you willing to pay? What are, whether it's sweat equity or, you know, whether you're willing to give up in terms of a wage,

what are you willing to pay to learn at the feet of this person who knows what you would like to one day know? Oh, yeah. You know, another important topic that comes up, again, thinking back to some of cows, working some others, is the difference between urgent and important. Sure. I've talked a lot about this, actually, with people. If I give talks, it's usually we draw the quadrants, we do whatever to show visuals from urgent and important and not important, not urgent. And Dwight, you referenced Dwight D. Eisenhower and the fact that some people say he was just playing golf when in reality he had a purpose behind delegation.

And you also referenced John DeLorean and the fact that he did the opposite and struggled with this. I think, you know, the disease of being busy is such a massive word and aspect of today. Talk to me about your thoughts on the word busy, on urgent and important. Well, you want to think about what are the things that only you can do and make sure you spend as much of your time conceivably doing those things. Like, like, for instance, it's funny, I have my to-do list in front of me. I just cross something off that I feel bad about. Like, I bought this, I bought a rifle, a hunting rifle, and then the scope broke. And I probably

spent like five hours on the phone, like trying to get this thing fixed. And it, it costs like, the scope's like $100. And it's like, first off, I could have had someone do that for me. And that would have cost, you know, X, or I could have just bit the bullet and purchased a new one and probably saved, you know, I could have spent five hours writing. But it's so tempting we have these things right in front of us that take us away from the unique tasks that only we can do. And so I think there was this great line from Eisenhower's chief of staff where he's basically like, you know, Ike does the most important things. I do the next most important things.

But to be able to delegate and prioritize is not just difficult, but it also, man, it, think about this way. There are lots of things that you and I, as busy, successful people, are probably really good at. And you might be able to hire someone to do that for you, but they might not be as good at it as you. So if you're thinking about this totally, in a selfish way, you're thinking, well, I'm the best at it. I should do it. But really, you need to be able to say, actually, this thing isn't all that important. It would be better to pay someone to do it for me and perhaps suffer a small decrease in efficiency or quality.

But that would free me up to record another podcast in your case or for me to write a book or, you know, work with a client. but it's hard because oftentimes, especially when we're creators, we like those. We like being involved. We like putting out fires. We like being busy. It makes us feel important. And so you've got to take ego out of the equation and say, hey, what's actually the best use of my time here? And is this really it?

And have the discipline and strength and confidence to say, unfortunately, I can't do that. I'm sorry. And to say no. Yeah. Hey, I want to ask you a, I thought of this when I was listening to you and Brian Coppulman talking. I love Brian's show. Brian's amazing. Yeah.

And I listened to pretty much everything he puts out and watches shows and movies. And Rounders is one of my all-time favorite movies. I assume you've seen. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you guys maybe briefly touched on it, but I thought you might go deeper. And so I thought, well, I have a chance to talk to Ryan directly. So I want to ask you.

And it might not be related to anything else we're talking about. But I wrote it down. I actually put it in the Evernote right after I listened to that one. So basically in that movie, Rounders, for the people who haven't seen it, you should. It's unbelievable. So Mike McDermott is at the bar with Petrovsky. You could probably remember the scene. And Petrovsky says, sit down, have a drink, and they're drinking gin.

And Petrovsky, I think, wants to kind of share his life story and maybe share some wisdom to try to help Mike as this young lawyer who's potentially at a crossroads for not necessarily sure what he wants to do. And Per Shrofsky kind of looks at him and he says, we can't run from who we are. Our destiny chooses us. And so I actually emailed Brian right after that and he sent me back a really interesting note. I'm curious from your perspective.

What did he say? Well, I want to hear your response first. So when you think of destiny and think of that whole, because this can go deep, you know, when you think of it, does it choose us or do we make our own? What are your thought? Because I have to tell you, like, I'm kind of really up and there and want to hear from really smart people and what they think about this. So I'm a little bit mixed.

So on the one hand, I very much believe in sort of having a lice task or a thing that you dedicate yourself towards and knowing that you're sort of on this sort of mission that you're working on. On the other hand, I think, you know, I guess I'm a little skeptical of destiny because I hear a lot of people. I see a lot of overlap between like destiny and passion and, you know, where people will be like, this is my destiny. This is what I was born to do. They're not really, I don't know, I guess I think that that language can be very seductive and distracting to people and sort of pulls them out of the present moment and prevents them from seeing. themselves or their task with the clarity that maybe it needs. So, you know, someone like Napoleon

is sort of driven by this sense of destiny, but it's also driven, drives him well past any reasonable point of satisfaction and ultimately compels him into his own downfall. You know, Alexander the Great is driven by this sense of destiny and can never end. And he conquers the known world. And his men are ready to sort of go home. They've been on Camas. pain for, you know, years, and he won't stop. I mean, there's a substantial sort of historical consensus that he was, Alexander the Great was killed by his own men in a mutiny because they knew this would never end. And so I think destiny can be dangerous and seductive, but at the same time, I do believe that I'm someone who happens to have found what I'm good at and what I was sort of, I don't

want to say put here to do, but just happens to line up with whatever my, you know, upbringing and the experience of my life all led up to this. So I don't, I guess I don't have the, you know, a clear, concise answer for you. But I think, I think it's complicated and it requires, you know, each individual to really look at themselves and what they're trying to do and figure it out. it's an interesting topic and I I pulled that out. You asked what Brian said. Yeah. I obviously don't think he'd mind me sharing this since he wrote the movie.

But he said Petrovsky's life experience told him that that was true. And I asked him if, you know, what did he think was true? Because he writes for characters. Not necessarily he's not writing a biography. And he said, I think we all have agency in our own journeys. And so I thought that was another interesting point from a very deep, thinker, a really intelligent guy. I'm a huge, like I mentioned,

compliment fan. Love the stuff that he does. I find myself agreeing with a lot of the things he says, or at least sometimes he changes my mind. And I love that because I think that's part of always being a student. That's part of what this whole show is about. And I think I got that same sense from you. It was great that we got to meet in person.

I'm glad we got to talk on a number of different occasions out there in Ohio because when you meet somebody who's had levels of success, sometimes you can be let down by the fact that if they are like a know-it-all or they think they've got it all figured out. And I think that's one of the interesting

aspects of meeting some of these successful people out there and people who have sustained it, whether it was you and James Clear and David Burkis, Jordan Harbinger, and so many other people that I can't even name. I'm going to leave them off. I mean, Jason, like all of them, it's,

felt like nobody had it all figured out. Nobody was there. Yet, if you, you know, look online or what other people would say, everyone would appear to be past that point of where others would say, oh, my God, they've got it all figured out, you know? Well, and two things. One, I remember early on meeting some people who's writing that I liked and being somewhat disappointed. And I remember I had two reactions. One, I wanted to make sure that my writing never overrepresented myself. That was very important to me, that I never wanted to present a certainty or image or brand or, you know, togetherness that wasn't actually there. And I think that's been very actually critical to my success because it's honest, right? And I think a lot of people are not. And the other reaction

I had to that was I wanted there to be more to me than might be visible to the public. So, you know, sort of the iceberg theory. Like this work that you see, this is a fraction of who I am. If you meet me in person, you find that, you know, I know more about the stuff than I might have presented online or that, you know, I'm, there's other elements to my personality that make it an overall more impressive package than a first impression or an outsider might guess. So that was something I sort of came to accidentally, but it's been very important to me. And then to go back to Destiny for a second, it's funny because when I was in Ohio, I was

finishing this other project I'm working on about Stoicism. And I was, the Stoics talked a lot about predestination. They were very, they very much believed in this sort of, in fate, that every, that every Everything was already written and said and that we were just living, that they believed we had relatively small amounts of control over what happened to us. But the image that the Stoics use over and over again is this idea of their sort of man is like a dog tied to a cart. That was their image, that were a dog tied to a moving wagon, right? And this wagon is fate.

And it's taking us somewhere. And we don't know where and we don't control where. but we still have a number of choices, right? So we're tied to this thing. So we can run up along in front of the wagon or we can sort of explore on the sides because there's a leash and it gives us a little bit of flexibility. Also, we can decide whether we're going to be dragged along unwillingly. Like, are we going to dig in our, you know, digging our feet and just be dragged along?

Are we going to give up and, you know, be dragged to death? Are we going to be cheerful about it? Are we going to, you know, we can control, even if we can't control where we're going, or what we're going to do, we can still control our attitude or our disposition along the way. So I've always sort of thought about it that way, too. It's like, look, it's something terrible could happen to you and I at a given moment or to people that we know about or we, sorry, we know or care about. And those, that's more the sort of destiny and fate that I believe in, that we're relatively

powerless in this sort of big scheme of things, but then each individual retains an immense amount of power over themselves and that we should focus our time and energy and effort on being the best within those constraints. I like that. I mean, not surprising. It's really thoughtful. Actually, that was going to be my last question, but I just read, you wrote a piece about Peter Teal and Gawker and all that's going on. I'm curious what's the update on what are your thoughts when it comes to whether it's Hulk Hogan and Peter Teal supporting that lawsuit in Gawker. I know there's a history there. What made you, I think a lot of people are lauding you and saying great, great work. What made you speak out about that? Well, I just, I don't think it's super interesting

to most people. Basically, you know, Gawker, I think is maybe one of the worst media companies of all time, sort of the definition of cruel and mean-spirited. And they attacked Peter Thiel about almost 10 years ago. And he's basically spent the last 10 years waiting for them to make a mistake. And then he funded a legal case against them that is now on the verge of bankrupting the company. And Gawker's now very upset about this. And my take is, hey, look, you know, every decision or choice we make has a consequence. And when you attack a billionaire, he might use.

his resources against you. Just as I know when I'm writing that article, I'm opening myself up. You know, Nick Denton could come after me or they could write bad articles about me. And I know that going in. I think honestly, there's less of a lesson there for most people than I was reading this other article last night. And you're actually in Ohio, right? Yeah. There was that gorilla. Yeah. The kid fell in the gorilla cage and then they had to kill the gorilla and people are really upset at the zoo and they're upset at the parents, and they're upset at the crowd. And this writer for CNN was saying, like, hey, how about instead of blaming people, you just have empathy for the fact that this tragedy happened and it was sad.

And I think that's right. And I like that attitude towards the news. I would say the next level, and this is something also the Stoics practice, and I think it connects with ego, what about just having no opinion about it whatsoever? Like, I don't live in Ohio. It's not, you know, wasn't my kid. or a kid that I knew that fell in. This isn't the last gorilla remaining on earth?

Like, do you really need to get worked up about an animal in a zoo dying in a city that you don't live in? And I think so much of our news cycle today is about getting you to care about, or not care, because care is a loaded word. Getting you to have an opinion about something that you don't need to have an opinion about and having an opinion impacts. in no way. And if you can cut that out of your life, you'll have a lot more energy and patience and empathy for the thing, for, for what is in your life that does require that. I mean, Ryan, it's, I'm so glad you brought this up. That's, that's one of the topics that my brother and AJ and I talk about so much is the fact that so many people get so offended over everything, literally everything. Everyone's got an opinion about this guerrilla

thing. It's certainly it's close to home here. And so I'm reading and seeing a lot about it. Yeah. And what you just said makes so much sense. Like, I mean, I feel terrible for the kid. I feel bad for the zoo. I feel bad for the gorilla. I mean, really, everybody. I mean, just feel bad. I mean, there's no, there's no need to judge anybody. There's no need to, like, go crazy. But this happens every day about so many different topics. And like, that's what's funny in a history and I are texts. And we're like, why are people so offended about every single thing? I'm not offended, Brian, seriously about anything. Like, unless it, like, it, like, it comes in contact with my family or somebody very close to me or like I mean I can't think of any other

situation like if somebody hates the sports team or even speaks poorly about my brother and his playing like it doesn't even offend me like hey you're a fan you have the right to say that like sure like like yeah I mean sometimes it just blows my mind to see people get offended over everything like CNN covered this and they should have covered that I am really mad I'm going to write a blog post why I mean why like it doesn't make any sense to me but but you said you feel terrible, which is obviously a more healthy emotion, but it's like pretend that you lived a hundred years ago, you would not have even heard of it. Right. So you would not only not feel terrible, you wouldn't feel anything because it essentially wouldn't exist to you. And so you see these

people just emoting an immense amount about, you know, a tragedy that happened in Thailand or, you know, this or that. It's like, you know, there's people who are worked up about the fact that. that the king of Thailand is persecuting, you know, dissidents who disagreed with him on Facebook. And it's like, do you live in Thailand? Do you know anyone that lives in Thailand? Were you planning on posting negative things about the king of Thailand when you were there? No. Then why don't you focus on the things that do affect you and try to make as much of a difference there

and see how that impacts your life? Exactly. Oh, man. I wouldn't expect to get that topic. It was good. Hey, Ryan, this is, obviously, it's even better than I expected. I loved it. Actually, I want to bring this up.

The interesting thing about your book is the giveaways that you have online. This will come out before is out, so it'll still be part of the pre-orders. I'll make sure to get it out before. Okay. So there'll be a limited time from when this is released to when the book actually is out. And you'll probably still have bulk order. But so for me personally, I purchased five books pre-order. You sent me one.

You were nice enough to send me an early... advance copy, which is great, but I still ordered five because I'm going to give them the way to friends. And I thought it was interesting that you're, you are willing to, one of the giveaways, if you buy five books, which I recommend at minimum, was that you would send a signed note card of the way that you do research, even though I don't know how you're going to be able to fulfill this, because that seems like a lot of work. But still, I'm exhausted. I did it for that, that was one of the reasons. I am because I just want to support you and I appreciate your work. But talk about some of the, the bulk buy and the giveaways. Yeah. I mean,

I believe in the book, and so I want to sort of put my, I guess, my time where my mouth is. And so there's different, you know, if you pre-order one copy, you get some cool stuff. If you pre-order five copies, you get, you know, like a signed note card that actually was from the research of the book. You know, you get, I think if you buy 20, there's, we'll do a call together. We can do a private session. Other people have purchased, you know, a few hundred copies. And I'm going to speak in an event they have.

So my, I believe that the best. way to get a, to make a book of success is to have as many people read it as possible. And so I want to create incentives for people to buy copies and give them to people that they think should read the book. And so that's what the pre-hour campaign is about. And where would you send people to do that? It's just on my website, Ryanholiday.com. I think it's the first post or the second or something like that. Yep. Perfect. I would encourage people to do it. Not only to support you, which we should, because I want to thank you for the work, but also because a number of people have said, I think Tim and others have said the best

SEO is great content. And that's what this book is, man. It is. And I, you know, there are a lot of books we read. And I've said this before and I'll say it again, whenever having second thoughts or not sure if you should buy a book or not, always, always, always buy the book. And that goes for any book that you're thinking about. For this conversation, I'm talking about ego as the enemy.

But if you've ever had any doubt or questioned, well, should I buy it or not? just click buy when you're on Amazon or wherever you are, you're in the bookstore because I guarantee you, if you spend 20 bucks for a book, what you could get from that could change your life. And so I'm always on the verge or on the edge of clicking buy for the books. And I'll do it for this one. You know, and I have seen your library, so I know you do the same thing.

But no, thank you so much, man, for being here. Thank you. It was awesome. I loved it. And obviously, we'll continue talking, man. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot, man. All right, man.

See you. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learningleadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show.